The Sensex began the day on a hesitant note with the index slipping 87 points to 15,478 in opening trades owing to weak global cues. The index, however, rebounded into positive zone by late morning deals on buying in Hindustan Unilever, BHEL and Larsen & Toubro.

Aggressive buying towards the closing bell saw the index soar to a high of 15,773 - up 295 points from the day's low. The Sensex finally ended with a smart gain of 167 points at 15,732.

The BSE Capital Goods index soared 4% to 13,596. The FMCG and Realty indices surged over 2% each to 1871 and 8379, respectively. The Auto index rallied 1.4% to 5198.

The market breadth was a tad positive - out of 2,710 stocks traded, 1,333 advanced, 1,302 declined and 75 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS....

BHEL zoomed over 7% to Rs 1,765. Larsen & Toubro (L&T) soared 5.6% to Rs 2,614.

Hindustan Unilever (HUL) surged 5% to Rs 204 on the back of the management's plan to buyback shares.

Bajaj Auto and Reliance Energy rallied around 4% each to Rs 2,424 and Rs 715, respectively.

ACC and Satyam advanced 3% each to Rs 1,140 and Rs 492, respectively. OGNC added 2.5% to Rs 910.

NTPC and Bharti Airtel moved up 2% each to Rs 158 and Rs 941, respectively.

HDFC Bank gained 1.7% at Rs 1,221. Hindalco and Reliance were up 1.3% each at Rs 185 and Rs 1,911, respectively. TCS spurted over 1% to Rs 1,191.

....AND THE SHAKERS

Cipla plunged nearly 5% to Rs 191. Infosys shed 2% at Rs 1,947, and ICICI Bank dropped 1.5% to Rs 970.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

GMR Infrastructure topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 225 crore followed by DLF (Rs 175 crore), debutant Suryachakra Power (Rs 139.25 crore), Larsen & Toubro (Rs 98.60 crore) and United Spirits (Rs 98 crore).

Suryachakra Power led the volume chart with trades of around 6.10 crore shares followed by IFCI (1.40 crore), Reliance Natural (99 lakh), Spice Tele (84 lakh) and Tata Teleservices (78.80 lakh).